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Sunday, 23 December 2007

It'll only get lighter

Yesterday was the shortest day. In Helsinki the sun came up at 09:25, and went back down again at 15:10. I make that 5 3/4 hours of official day light. Not too bad compared to Trondheim, where yesterday the sun came up at 09:59 and went back down at 14:28 (just short of 4 1/2 hours). We've really noticed the extra 1 1/4 hours - it hasn't seemed anywhere near as oppressively dark as it did last year. I think this time last year in Trondheim it was cloudy a lot of the time, which didn't help, whereas here in Helsinki we've had some clear, cold, crisp sunny days (like yesterday). I still think back to when I moved from Knoxville, Tennessee back to the UK (in 2003) - I think Knoxville this time of year has about 9 1/2 hours of day light, and Bristol has about 7 3/4 hours, I remember really noticing the difference over the winter, and thinking that Bristol was really dark - looking back, I didn't know anything. I can't imagine living north of the arctic circle and not getting any light whatsoever. I've altered the Koolhaas hat so that it covers my ears - it was quite stressful ripping back the crown shaping - before I ripped anything I thread a smaller circular needle through what I thought was a row and unravelled back to it - I had managed to thread through a row (they're difficult to spot through the cables) and so it all went OK. So, here's a definitely finished Koolhaas hat: